The King who fell at Hastings
Recreating the war gear of Harold Godwinson, Last Saxon King of England
This project began on an interesting footing, namely when my partner told me that I resembled Harold Godwinson - the last Saxon King of ‘arrow-in-the-eye’ fame - on the Bayeux Tapestry. Now, as far as Saxon kings go my knowledge had traditionally been centred on the more famous names of the period - King Alfred, for example. But learning more about the conquest of England in 1066 and realising how Harold has been done a huge disservice in the histories of his reign, coupled with my partner’s comments about my resemblance (I’ll take it as a compliment…), meant learning about Harold soon became forefront. Recreating him from there has since become a passion of mine and is something I am still working on to this day; ever improving, ever realising how few sources we have to describe a King from one of the most significant turning points in England’s history.
So, first a look the sources; what do we really have? Well, to answer that, not much! We have the Tapestry of course, which is probably our best source from the immediate aftermath, but it could and most likely is plagued with bias. We also have the coinage of Harold minted in his short reign, but all-in-all we don’t have a great deal. This wasn’t going to be easy.
On the Bayeux Tapestry, there is only one depiction of Harold in armour that we can be most certain of, the other that depicts his death continues to be up for debate. So, logically, for my own project I chose the most certain of the two. Within that we see Harold in full maille, wielding a spear and pennant alongside Duke William of Normandy. I had decided I didn’t want to carbon copy this depiction straight from the threads of the Tapestry; instead, I wanted to play out some potential facts and possibilities based on evidence and practicalities. The following discussion gives further details on some of the items I have since included in my war gear kit for Harold, and my reasoning behind choosing them.
Helmet
I was quite torn with the helmet. It’s common in portrayals of 11th century war gear to see one-piece nasal helmets. However, by utilising the amazing features on the Bayeux Tapestry website (which you should definitely check out), you have the ability to zoom in on their high-quality images and get detailed views of how the clothing is depicted. What I discovered was that a large proportion of the helmets, particularly on the Anglo Saxon side, were shown with panels on them. I chose to adopt this style in my own impression.
Hauberk
Where is the helm and the hauberk? Well the helmet’s above and I’ll talk about the hauberk. Jokes aside, this one was slightly easier to work out; it’s clear depiction on the Tapestry shows that Harold has full maille so we know with some degree of certainty where to go with that. But the importance is in the detail and sleeves are one such detail. I came at this from a status, money and practicality point of view. In 11th century England, times are changing: maille isn’t cheap and as a king do you sit in battle with your forearms out or in? From early 12th century, not long after Harold’s time, we see evidence that maille mittens soon become a feature of war gear. The further back in time we go, the shorter the arms become - you can see where I am going with this can’t you? So, I decided longer sleeves were more appropriate for both the time and the person I was depicting.
Another small but important detail regarding the hauberk is the sword slit, probably the most controversial aspect of my impression. There is a lot of evidence for it in the Tapestry (which is my gospel, can’t you tell) and based on my perception of these I truly believe that sword slits within maille were a ‘thing’. My only reservation is in the amount of depictions that come from the Normandy/France side of the channel over Anglo-Saxon England. This can perhaps be mitigated a little given we know there was an ever growing Norman export culture creeping into England ever since the reign of Edward the Confessor.
However, there are a good number of belts on the Tapestry and it is unclear in the depiction of Harold’s death whether he has a sword slit or not. Essentially, I split the difference and went with a belt, it’s not wrong, though it may not be perfect. When we are limited in sources, an educated guess is better than a total guess, I guess?
Sword
I lied. The sword was probably easier than the Hauberk to decide on. I went with a simple ‘Peterson type X’ with Brazil nut pommel. Now, some will argue for a more ‘Saxon’ looking sword, but coming back to the fact that Harold was a King, and therefore probably at the forefront of tech at the time, I thought this makes a stronger argument for a sword. When we look at the Tapestry, we can also clearly see some type X typologies knocking around in there. In reality, the sword I currently have is probably a little simple for a King like Harold, but the style itself is one that was starting to make its mark during this period and would cement for a few centuries.
The shield
The shield I decided on was the typical late 11th century kite shield. As a style that was at the forefront of shield technology of the time, it made the fitting choice. Looking at the Tapestry once again, we see a large amount of kite shields on both sides of the Battle of Hastings; we even see see a potentially mortally wounded Harold with a kite shield at his side. This is where I got the patterning for mine; the design is taken straight from the Tapestry, but the colours themselves are for my group in Regia Anglorum. It was a work of art by a good friend of mine, Konrad.
To conclude then! To keep this concise, I will save my soft kit for another time. I built an authentic impression based on what I had; it’s not an easy one given the limited evidence and particularly with going for the higher echelons of Anglo-Saxon English society. But what comes as the most important part of building an impression is, I loved it, and it’s never finished.
Written by Mitch Lawrence
Stay tuned for more @mitchofthefyrd
Photography of Mitch taken and copyrighted by @historywithjess & Living Medieval
If interested, here is the link to the online viewing of the Bayeux Tapestry:
https://www.bayeuxmuseum.com/en/the-bayeux-tapestry/discover-the-bayeux-tapestry/explore-online/
Supplier mentions -
Konrad Harris - Shield
Habibi Armoury - Hauberk
Jackhammer Forge - Helmet
Lixar Rebellum - Sword